I love talking about music. I also hate being the sort of person who tries to talk about music. I kind of brought it up in my “review” of Local H’s Hallelujah! I’m a Bum. It’s just hard to talk about music in general without coming off as a hipster doofus, a self-important jackass, or someone who just makes caveman-esque assertions like, “This good. You listen. Crunchy.” Still, there has to be a way to talk about music that works. I honestly think I do a decent job of it from time to time, specifically here and here, if you want an example.
See, music is a completely subjective thing. Other than the fact that we’re all in agreeance that Nickelback sucks a camel’s ass, that Coldplay is terrible, and that anyone who listens to [insert current blond-and-boobed pop star/boy band/Justin Bieber here] really ought to be put out of their misery, there’s nothing that’s really objectively true about music. I regularly hear people extol the virtues of this band or that band and my only response is, “Really?” I’m far more likely to find music that I just generally cannot care about than music I’m going to love or hate.
Still, I think there’s room to talk about the experience of music. I realized that once when I was reading a Chuck Klosterman piece and, through his story of the experience of thinking about an album in relation to 9/11, convinced me to listen to Radiohead of all things. I ended up hating it, but for a brief moment I wanted to hear what he heard and understand what he understood. That’s a powerful thing.
It also reminds me of the writing of Lawrence Weschler. I’m not comparing Chuck Klosterman’s writing skill to Weschler by any means. I wouldn’t dream of comparing anyone’s writing to Weschler. But Weschler writes about the experience of art in a way that’s so immediate it can’t not be compelling. There’s no reason that can’t be done with music and, really, I haven’t run into anyone who does it better than Klosterman.[1] I think it gets down to taking something ethereal and, ultimately, pointless and turning it into something immediate, concrete, and important.
So let’s talk about Soundgarden.
-------------------------
I’ve offered the ur-narrative of Soundgarden on this blog before.
I was riding shotgun in seventh grade in a maroon minivan somewhere on the road between New Holland, Michigan and Wheaton, Illinois. I was in that maroon minivan because we were on our way either to or from a spring break work trip with my youth group. It was probably from, though, as I recall spending the trip to Michigan in the back of that same minivan with SMark and Tim, two of my best friends.
Memory is a funny thing in situations like this. I know that I had to be either at the tail-end of twelve or the very beginning of thirteen. My birthday is in May, at the very end of the school year, and spring break is usually in April or even March. This also has to have been seventh grade, because by eighth grade I was totally on board with the whole Alternative Rock thing.
There is absolutely no precedent for what happened while I was riding shotgun in that van. I thought this was the greatest song in the world at the time:
And, really, it’s best not to talk about my love of early ‘90s Christian honky rap. But…still:
I…I have no excuses. Seriously, what the hell, man?
The radio in that maroon minivan was on long enough to hear three songs that I can recall. The moment is so specific and so powerful that I remember those details. The songs in question were Falco’s “Rock Me Amadeus,” the Counting Crows’ “Mr. Jones,” and Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun.” It should go without saying that “Black Hole Sun” was the one of those three that had the biggest impact. This boggles my mind. To this day I like the Counting Crows quite a bit and consider August and Everything After one of the best ‘90s albums. That Falco thing, though? Yeah…no.
I think one of the most fascinating things that I realize when I think about me from two decades ago is how little I understood about the world. At some point after the moment in the maroon minivan I went to a record store in the mall and bought Superunknown on CD. I was in a state of near panic that someone would catch me buying something I shouldn’t own and I’d get in trouble. It’s also because of this that I know I got that RCA boombox for Christmas in 1993.
Memory is a funny thing.
At some point after I got Superunknown I added Badmotorfinger to my collection. Badmotorfinger was a much bigger existential crisis for me than even Superunknown had been. Badmotorfinger had a song called “Jesus Christ Pose,” after all.
I now find this quaint. At the time it was a total Biden.[2] Musicians were allowed to talk about Jesus, but they had to do it in an earnest, CCM sort of way. If they didn’t…that probably had something to do with Satan. Soundgarden was not so much doing that.
I realize now that “Jesus Christ Pose” wasn’t blasphemy. It wasn’t really about Jesus at all, but instead about dipshits who thought that being criticized was the same as being crucified.
Okay…so the music video’s a bit blasphemous. I didn’t have MTV until 1999, so I didn’t know that.
But still, “Jesus Christ Pose” was, explicitly, a song about people exploiting Christianity for fame and/or to pretend to be persecuted and/or to make sure everyone knew that they were superior human beings. There is nothing in this notion that I find objectionable. In fact, I’d say that the song is way more apt for the society of today than it was twenty years ago when Badmotorfinger came out.
Ironically, I suppose, Soundgarden wasn’t allowed to talk about Jesus in the world I inhabited. Only Christians could talk about Jesus and they could only talk about Jesus in glowing terms. Really, though, who is insulting Jesus more in the three videos I’ve put up? I’d have to say that if I had to choose between Rick Cua, TobyMac, and Chris Cornell, Cornell would be a distant third.
-
As it turns out, not all Christian music from the time Before Soundgarden was embarrassingly terrible. Neither DC Talk nor Rick Cua sprang immediately to mind while I considered the nature of “Jesus Christ Pose.” This, in fact, was the first thing that came to mind:
I really can’t think of too many early-‘90s Christian bands that are more obscure than Dakoda Motor Co. I’m also not really going to say that Dakoda Motor Co. was particularly good. But here’s the thing: they’re enjoyable and pleasantly non-terrible compared to their compatriots.
In fact, listening to Dakoda for the first time in – for all intents and purposes – forever reminded me of someone or another. At first I thought it was Veruca Salt, then I thought it was Republica, then I thought it was Garbage. Finally, though, I figured it out.
So…”Grey Clouds” might not be the best example. Let’s try these, instead:
What Dakoda lacks in bare midriffs and pointed social commentary compared to No Doubt they make up for with, um, happy Jesus-y stuff. So they’ve got that goin’ for ‘em.
Either way, the takeway is this: No Doubt, man. They were better than I remember.[3]
Also, this?
It comes off of an album that I apparently did not listen to at any point. But it occurs to me that it's got a pretty Veruca Salt-ish vibe. And the little girl at the start of the video is creepy as fuck, so there's that.
Oh, and just in general, my Tuesday was really, really weird. How was yours?
---------------
[1]Klosterman himself is a fascinating writer for me. I hated him when I first read Killing Yourself to Live. There was just something about his style that bugged me. But I forced myself to read that book. Then I read Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. Somewhere in the middle of that I realized that he was basically a relentlessly navel-gazing low art version of Lawrence Weschler. Since then I’ve enjoyed his stuff.
[2]Big Fucking Deal.
[3]Also, this caused me to have one of the funniest ironic moments of all time. At least, that I, personally, caused.
See, I still own pretty much every CD I’ve ever owned. This includes some awful Christian music from the early ‘90s, but also includes Dakoda Motor Co. So I decided to pull it out because, y’know, I could. I went through all of the CDs in my house and it just wasn’t there, in spite of the fact that my old DC Talk and Rick Cua CDs most definitely were. Since I was already heavily invested in the project I started thinking through the alternatives, up to and including buying the damn thing.
Then I remembered that from time to time my dad mentions a box of my CDs in the garage at my parents’ house. So I loaded Daisy in the car, went over there (it’s not far), found the box, stuck it in the trunk, talked to my mom for a bit, and then headed home. I dropped the box on the stairs and started going through it. Finally I found the case.
I pulled it out of the stack and paused for just a moment as I thought, “Wouldn’t it be funny if the CD wasn’t in the case?” Then I opened it up and saw the empty spot where the CD was supposed to be. I started laughing.
It also occurred to me that the CD had to be in a CD wallet somewhere. So I went over to my office and poked around in the closet. Sure enough, I found my old CD wallet that I used to keep on my visor and, sure enough, Dakoda Motor Co.’s Into the Son was in that wallet. Here’s a list of the other albums that were also in that wallet:
The Newsboys, Going Public
Jars of Clay, Jars of Clay
DC Talk, Free at Last
Various, City on a Hill
Steven Curtis Chapman, Greatest Hits
Rich Mullins, The Jesus Record
Caedmon’s Call, In the Company of Angels
Mark Schultz, Mark Schultz
Mark Schultz, Song Cinema
Caedomon’s Call, 40 Acres
FFH, Have I Ever Told You
Third Day, Time
The Refreshments, The Bottle and Fresh Horses
[An empty slot that I can only assume once contained Fizzy, Fuzzy, Big and Buzzy]
Oasis, Definitely Maybe
The Wallflowers, Bringing Down the Horse
Soundgarden, Badmotorfinger
Soundgarden, Superunknown
Soundgarden, Down on the Upside
It’s like an archaeological expedition finding the set of the TV show Dinosaurs amongst actual fossilized dinosaur remains. It makes almost no sense.
Also, really, that’s how we used to have to listen to music? Man, that sucks. Digital music is the shit, man. It’s the fookin’ shit.
Also, also, thanks to this journey down memory lane I’m now listening to Caedmon’s Call. This probably won’t end well.
See, music is a completely subjective thing. Other than the fact that we’re all in agreeance that Nickelback sucks a camel’s ass, that Coldplay is terrible, and that anyone who listens to [insert current blond-and-boobed pop star/boy band/Justin Bieber here] really ought to be put out of their misery, there’s nothing that’s really objectively true about music. I regularly hear people extol the virtues of this band or that band and my only response is, “Really?” I’m far more likely to find music that I just generally cannot care about than music I’m going to love or hate.
Still, I think there’s room to talk about the experience of music. I realized that once when I was reading a Chuck Klosterman piece and, through his story of the experience of thinking about an album in relation to 9/11, convinced me to listen to Radiohead of all things. I ended up hating it, but for a brief moment I wanted to hear what he heard and understand what he understood. That’s a powerful thing.
It also reminds me of the writing of Lawrence Weschler. I’m not comparing Chuck Klosterman’s writing skill to Weschler by any means. I wouldn’t dream of comparing anyone’s writing to Weschler. But Weschler writes about the experience of art in a way that’s so immediate it can’t not be compelling. There’s no reason that can’t be done with music and, really, I haven’t run into anyone who does it better than Klosterman.[1] I think it gets down to taking something ethereal and, ultimately, pointless and turning it into something immediate, concrete, and important.
So let’s talk about Soundgarden.
-------------------------
I’ve offered the ur-narrative of Soundgarden on this blog before.
I was riding shotgun in seventh grade in a maroon minivan somewhere on the road between New Holland, Michigan and Wheaton, Illinois. I was in that maroon minivan because we were on our way either to or from a spring break work trip with my youth group. It was probably from, though, as I recall spending the trip to Michigan in the back of that same minivan with SMark and Tim, two of my best friends.
Memory is a funny thing in situations like this. I know that I had to be either at the tail-end of twelve or the very beginning of thirteen. My birthday is in May, at the very end of the school year, and spring break is usually in April or even March. This also has to have been seventh grade, because by eighth grade I was totally on board with the whole Alternative Rock thing.
There is absolutely no precedent for what happened while I was riding shotgun in that van. I thought this was the greatest song in the world at the time:
And, really, it’s best not to talk about my love of early ‘90s Christian honky rap. But…still:
I…I have no excuses. Seriously, what the hell, man?
The radio in that maroon minivan was on long enough to hear three songs that I can recall. The moment is so specific and so powerful that I remember those details. The songs in question were Falco’s “Rock Me Amadeus,” the Counting Crows’ “Mr. Jones,” and Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun.” It should go without saying that “Black Hole Sun” was the one of those three that had the biggest impact. This boggles my mind. To this day I like the Counting Crows quite a bit and consider August and Everything After one of the best ‘90s albums. That Falco thing, though? Yeah…no.
I think one of the most fascinating things that I realize when I think about me from two decades ago is how little I understood about the world. At some point after the moment in the maroon minivan I went to a record store in the mall and bought Superunknown on CD. I was in a state of near panic that someone would catch me buying something I shouldn’t own and I’d get in trouble. It’s also because of this that I know I got that RCA boombox for Christmas in 1993.
Memory is a funny thing.
At some point after I got Superunknown I added Badmotorfinger to my collection. Badmotorfinger was a much bigger existential crisis for me than even Superunknown had been. Badmotorfinger had a song called “Jesus Christ Pose,” after all.
I now find this quaint. At the time it was a total Biden.[2] Musicians were allowed to talk about Jesus, but they had to do it in an earnest, CCM sort of way. If they didn’t…that probably had something to do with Satan. Soundgarden was not so much doing that.
I realize now that “Jesus Christ Pose” wasn’t blasphemy. It wasn’t really about Jesus at all, but instead about dipshits who thought that being criticized was the same as being crucified.
Okay…so the music video’s a bit blasphemous. I didn’t have MTV until 1999, so I didn’t know that.
But still, “Jesus Christ Pose” was, explicitly, a song about people exploiting Christianity for fame and/or to pretend to be persecuted and/or to make sure everyone knew that they were superior human beings. There is nothing in this notion that I find objectionable. In fact, I’d say that the song is way more apt for the society of today than it was twenty years ago when Badmotorfinger came out.
Ironically, I suppose, Soundgarden wasn’t allowed to talk about Jesus in the world I inhabited. Only Christians could talk about Jesus and they could only talk about Jesus in glowing terms. Really, though, who is insulting Jesus more in the three videos I’ve put up? I’d have to say that if I had to choose between Rick Cua, TobyMac, and Chris Cornell, Cornell would be a distant third.
-
As it turns out, not all Christian music from the time Before Soundgarden was embarrassingly terrible. Neither DC Talk nor Rick Cua sprang immediately to mind while I considered the nature of “Jesus Christ Pose.” This, in fact, was the first thing that came to mind:
I really can’t think of too many early-‘90s Christian bands that are more obscure than Dakoda Motor Co. I’m also not really going to say that Dakoda Motor Co. was particularly good. But here’s the thing: they’re enjoyable and pleasantly non-terrible compared to their compatriots.
In fact, listening to Dakoda for the first time in – for all intents and purposes – forever reminded me of someone or another. At first I thought it was Veruca Salt, then I thought it was Republica, then I thought it was Garbage. Finally, though, I figured it out.
So…”Grey Clouds” might not be the best example. Let’s try these, instead:
What Dakoda lacks in bare midriffs and pointed social commentary compared to No Doubt they make up for with, um, happy Jesus-y stuff. So they’ve got that goin’ for ‘em.
Either way, the takeway is this: No Doubt, man. They were better than I remember.[3]
Also, this?
It comes off of an album that I apparently did not listen to at any point. But it occurs to me that it's got a pretty Veruca Salt-ish vibe. And the little girl at the start of the video is creepy as fuck, so there's that.
Oh, and just in general, my Tuesday was really, really weird. How was yours?
---------------
[1]Klosterman himself is a fascinating writer for me. I hated him when I first read Killing Yourself to Live. There was just something about his style that bugged me. But I forced myself to read that book. Then I read Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. Somewhere in the middle of that I realized that he was basically a relentlessly navel-gazing low art version of Lawrence Weschler. Since then I’ve enjoyed his stuff.
[2]Big Fucking Deal.
[3]Also, this caused me to have one of the funniest ironic moments of all time. At least, that I, personally, caused.
See, I still own pretty much every CD I’ve ever owned. This includes some awful Christian music from the early ‘90s, but also includes Dakoda Motor Co. So I decided to pull it out because, y’know, I could. I went through all of the CDs in my house and it just wasn’t there, in spite of the fact that my old DC Talk and Rick Cua CDs most definitely were. Since I was already heavily invested in the project I started thinking through the alternatives, up to and including buying the damn thing.
Then I remembered that from time to time my dad mentions a box of my CDs in the garage at my parents’ house. So I loaded Daisy in the car, went over there (it’s not far), found the box, stuck it in the trunk, talked to my mom for a bit, and then headed home. I dropped the box on the stairs and started going through it. Finally I found the case.
I pulled it out of the stack and paused for just a moment as I thought, “Wouldn’t it be funny if the CD wasn’t in the case?” Then I opened it up and saw the empty spot where the CD was supposed to be. I started laughing.
It also occurred to me that the CD had to be in a CD wallet somewhere. So I went over to my office and poked around in the closet. Sure enough, I found my old CD wallet that I used to keep on my visor and, sure enough, Dakoda Motor Co.’s Into the Son was in that wallet. Here’s a list of the other albums that were also in that wallet:
The Newsboys, Going Public
Jars of Clay, Jars of Clay
DC Talk, Free at Last
Various, City on a Hill
Steven Curtis Chapman, Greatest Hits
Rich Mullins, The Jesus Record
Caedmon’s Call, In the Company of Angels
Mark Schultz, Mark Schultz
Mark Schultz, Song Cinema
Caedomon’s Call, 40 Acres
FFH, Have I Ever Told You
Third Day, Time
The Refreshments, The Bottle and Fresh Horses
[An empty slot that I can only assume once contained Fizzy, Fuzzy, Big and Buzzy]
Oasis, Definitely Maybe
The Wallflowers, Bringing Down the Horse
Soundgarden, Badmotorfinger
Soundgarden, Superunknown
Soundgarden, Down on the Upside
It’s like an archaeological expedition finding the set of the TV show Dinosaurs amongst actual fossilized dinosaur remains. It makes almost no sense.
Also, really, that’s how we used to have to listen to music? Man, that sucks. Digital music is the shit, man. It’s the fookin’ shit.
Also, also, thanks to this journey down memory lane I’m now listening to Caedmon’s Call. This probably won’t end well.
Hey, I made the blog!!
I used to listen to DC Talk as well and was at the time convinced that they were the best thing ever... turns out, not so much; certainly not that early on anyway.
I also remember Dakota Motor Co. I don't know if I ever owned a CD and I wouldn't ever have thought about them again had it not been for this entry. As it stands, I'm probably going to stop listening to Grizzly Bear for a bit while I pay bills and see what there is to hear.
smark
Posted by: Mark | 12/05/2012 at 08:31 PM
Holy crap, you read my blog? I guess this means I need to re-think my upcoming series entitled "Why I Now Hate Everyone I Knew in Junior High and Grade School. Hint, It's Because They Suck and Also Are Terrorists..." Or, actually, maybe I should go forward with it.
But, yeah, seriously, I remember having many conversations about the awesomneness that was DC Talk. For the life of me I can't do anything other than giggle when I think about it now. Although I also refuse to listen to Free at Last ever again because I hold out some tiny modicum of hope that it's at least objectively not terrible.
And...yeah. I have no idea why I thought about Dakoda the other day. It just kind of popped up from where it was lurking in the dark recesses of my diseased mind. Good times...good times.
Posted by: Geds | 12/06/2012 at 09:43 AM
I do, in fact read your blog--it's in my Google Reader rotation so I keep up pretty well... occasionally there'll be a post that falls into the "TLDR" but I blame that more on the busy-ness of having 3 kids than anything else.
I do like the idea for your upcoming series; I've a feeling I might read that with gusto :-)
Oddly enough, your post yesterday did drive me to Spotify to listen to things I hadn't heard in forever. I abandoned most Christian music in the late 90's or early 2000's due to most of the acoustic reasons you've mentioned. But let's see, Smalltown Poets? Did you ever listen to them? I did a little bit last night and they held up ok. All Star United? I really liked their eponymous album and liked it again last night. Anyway, as you pointed out, the breadth afforded by digital music is a treat. Oh, Dakota Motor Company though? Not so great, as it turns out. And I think I did own 1 CD but honestly I didn't remember much from it.
Also, how do you not like Radiohead? They're weird... but good.
Posted by: Mark | 12/06/2012 at 10:10 AM
Me? TL;DR? Surely you jest...
And I didn't say that Dakoda were great. They were just surprisingly non-terrible and peppily enjoyable, especially when placed in context with Rick Cua, who will now officially join Al Denson and Carman on my list of Christian singers whose name I'll take in vain when swearing isn't an option. Although, really, that's a much more limited situation these days.
Of course I had Smalltown Poets. Weirdly, they attained a sort of immortality in my mp3 collection, since for some reason the album art for Listen Closely was assigned to Jimmy Eat World's Futures. I never figured out why and I could never fix it. I did find the CD when I was poking through my old Christian stuff the other night, too. All Star United, though, was one of those bands I occasionally ran into while working at John's Christian Stores, but I never actually listened to them.
Honestly, as for Radiohead, I'm about as far removed from a prog rock guy as you can be. The Bends was a great album, but then I lost the ability to care when they went all goofy. I did had a weird ongoing proxy fight with Amy's brother through Amy over Radiohead's alleged goodness v. grunge's much-betterness. That's the sort of thing that I really should have taken as a bad sign at the time, now that I think about it. And, really, that brings up a fascinating question: did you ever meet Amy? I don't think we we were ever in the same room during that stretch.
Posted by: Geds | 12/06/2012 at 09:46 PM
I don't believe I did ever meet Amy. Sadly enough, the last time I recall seeing you was at my wedding--is that right? That would have been March of 2005. I've read a lot about Amy but I can't remember the exact chronology; if I recall correctly you came to the wedding by yourself.
That said, it would be cool to grab lunch or something sometime. It seems you're a M-F type of guy with availability as your house projects allow on the weekends(?). Retail ends up giving me a weird schedule and one that's generally worse this month than most, but perhaps we could work something out.
Did your album art screw up in Winamp? I think I had that issue with a couple artists too.
Posted by: Mark | 12/07/2012 at 12:34 PM